Mudassir Kuloo
Srinagar, Dec 10: Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “deceiving” the people of Jammu, senior National Conference Vice-President, Omar Abdullah, on Monday challenged the party to announce its chief ministerial candidate.
“The BJP made fake promises to the people of Jammu prior to the last elections. They made fake promises on PaK refugees, return of Kashmiri pandits to valley, granting union territory to Ladakh, construction of Ram Mandir, and Jammu’s own leadership,” Omar said in his address to National Conference (NC) workers.
He said the party later allied PDP.
“They made Mufti Mohammad Saeed chief minister of the state. Recently, they offered chief ministerial post to a leader who has just two MLAs. The BJP will again make promises that the next chief minister will be from the BJP but they will prove to be hoax once the polls are over,” Omar, former chief minister of the state, said.
He was referring to Peoples Conference led by Sajad Gani Lone, who had staked claim to form a government in the state with the support of the 25-legislators of BJP and 18 others.
“The BJP is now advocating divisional status for Ladakh, while it could not grant it union territory status. We want unification of all three regions for communal harmony.”
He challenged the BJP to announce its chief ministerial candidate in the upcoming elections.
“The BJP has already cheated the people of Jammu twice. The party shall tell the people who its chief ministerial candidate is,” he said, demanding the parliamentary and assembly elections should be held together.
“The BJP wanted urban local bodies and panchayat polls to be held in the state but are not ready for Assembly polls,” he said.
“I don’t think people of Jammu and Kashmir are ready to be deceived once again, which is why the BJP is escaping elections.”
The NC leader said his party backed PDP in government formation to save the state from its “current mess and uncertainty”.
“We wanted to defend Article 35A, this government was not going to sustain for long as it had to topple one day and elections had to be done,” he said.
“The NC-PDP-Congress came together despite differences, as we are not hungry for power but worried about the wellbeing of the state and its people. We did it for the state but not for the interest of party.” he said.
“The ruling party was threatening MLAs and using money to lure them for the support.”
He, however, ruled out their pre-poll alliance with any party.
“We will contest on all the seats. You give us the representatives who can contest the polls,” he said.
“There are some seats where the NC has never won. We are sure that we will win those seats which we lost in the previous elections,” he said.
He said the BJP leader, who accused NC of boycotting local body polls and joining hands with PDP and Congress on Pakistan’s behest, later “withdrew his words”.
